


Platitudes

by manic_intent



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-15
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Wade runs into a familiar stranger south of the border.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
  
  
**Entry tags:**   
|   
[310 to yuma](http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/tag/310%20to%20yuma), [fic](http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/tag/fic)  
  
---|---  
  
_**[fic] Platitudes [1/?]**_  
 **Title** : Platitudes [1/?]  
 **Fandom** : 3:10 to Yuma  
 **Pairings** : Ben/Charlie, Ben/Dan Evans  
 **Rating** : PG13  
 **A/N** : Great movie.:3 Just about to watch the Quick and the Dead. Russell Crowe looks exactly the same, it's like a time machine. ;o.  Ben Wade meets a familiar stranger south of the border.

  


[A/N: Loved the movie. :O Alternative universe.  By the way, I am very bad with Wild Wild West slang, so feel free to correct anything.  I can’t parse it without subtitles.  Yes, I had to watch 3:10 to Yuma with subtitles.  And True Grit.  And play Red Dead Redemption with subtitles.  Some towns made up.]

 

Platitudes

Part 1

I

 

“Howdy, stranger,” Ben Wade drawled, all lazy irony, settling onto the waxy stool against the pitted white stone counter of the saloon’s bar.  “Fancy seeing you south of the border.”

 

Dan Evans ignored him, dipping his head over the cloudy glass of something that looked like tequila, the hard edge of his Stetson shading his eyes.  He’d gone native, then; the rancher looked considerably older than what Ben remembered, the previously thick, earth-dark hair hacked short with a knife, sideburns etched with a few lines of silver.  The hollows under his eyes were bruised deeper, his cheeks pinched, and there were fresh, hard lines etched like fault lines into the edges of his eyes and his shaggy brow that could have only come from the worst sort of sorrow. 

 

The ragged rancher clothes were gone, and vaguely, Ben wasn’t sure if he didn’t miss them.  Dan was dressed in discolored whites and storm grays now, like some sort of ragged sea bird, an ammunition belt slung over his duster, vest and hitched tight against the rumpled white shirt beneath it, a well-worn leather holster at his hip, sleek pants tucked into black cowboy boots that hid his missing foot.  The only part of Dan Evans that Ben recognized was the pistol in the holster; even his rifle was different now, a sleek new Berdan Sharps, lovingly oiled and worn across Dan’s back. 

 

The saloon’s swinging doors creaked, and Ben turned his head, very slightly, out of pure habit, checking his peripheral vision, over the stooping tables of hawkish men bent over their unhurried game of cards, over the sodden old man curled around a bottle at the table against the sandstone wall, the great fat horseflies that circled in slow, balletic descent from the pitted ceiling. 

 

Dan had done the same, briefly, then had glanced back down at his glass when Charlie sauntered in, thumbs hooked in his belt, his jacket unbuttoned at the neck to reveal a gash of purple cotton.  “Boss-” his bright, coyote-sharp smile faded when he took in the long curve of Dan’s back, and the rifle.

 

“Why don’t you go check on the others, Charlie.” Ben said mildly.

 

“That Bisbee rancher’s our _sniper_?” Charlie demanded, incredulously.  “What the fuck, boss?”

 

“ _Charlie_ ,” Ben repeated, his eyes narrowing a fraction, the alpha wolf staring down its pack, and Charlie instantly dropped his gaze, his gloved fingers twitching, and he stalked out of the saloon, teeth clenched, hopefully not to start wreaking destruction somewhere in the small town perched on the edge of a wind-carved plateau. 

 

Ben exhaled, relaxing back against the counter, and he saw Dan’s gloved hand drop back to his lap from where it had hung over his pistol.  “I’ll have to admit though, Dan, to a little curiosity, seeing as you half-killed yourself to get me on that train, all them years ago, for the sake of your pretty wife and your boys and your dusty little ranch.”

 

There was a moment of silence, broken when one of the men at cards folded with a rheumy word of disgust and a gob of spit onto the scuffed mud-packed floor.  “Ain’t none of your business.” Dan’s voice was roughened and harsh, as though sun-scorched or disused. 

 

“Now you’ve done gone and made me even more curious.  What made a man like you turn his back on everything?”

 

Dan exhaled, harsh and loud in the sleepy, hot daze of an afternoon, watching a horsefly creep up the whitewashed counter at a slant for the stack of cloudy glasses, what Ben could see of his raw umber eyes distant and haunted. 

 

“If I tell you, would you leave me be?”

 

“I might,” Ben allowed, though even as he said it, he was already working it out.  A man like Dan Evans would have walked away from the life he fought so hard for only if there was nothing left to fight for. 

 

“My wife and my son were dead when I got back.  The house was burned, the cattle were shot.” Dan’s voice was utterly flat, emotionless, as though he was reading from a grocery list, but his long, roughened fingers twitched briefly around his glass. 

 

“Who did that?” Ben asked, and then was a little surprised to hear the hard edge to his own voice. 

 

Despite the fact that he’d liked Dan and found him interesting, as far as Ben had been concerned, or so he had then thought, any obligations had ended when he’d willingly stepped on the train and talked Charlie Prince into standing down.  Escaping the train hadn’t been too difficult, particularly since Charlie had insisted stubbornly on following him, then sneaking aboard when the train stopped at Tucson.  It was a little odd to find that he _did_ care that Dan hadn’t gotten the happy ending that he’d worked so hard for.

 

“Can’t say.  Think it was Hollander, but I can’t prove it.  I made William go with Butterfield.  Sold the land to the railroad.” Dan said, with the same, unnervingly emotionless tone.  “I got some descriptions from town, seems it was the Bowden gang, hired out.”

 

“Nicky Bowden,” Ben scratched absently at his chin.  He vaguely recalled Charlie mentioning Bowden and his gang, about a month or so ago after they’d done that heist at the Vernon bank and hidden out in a valley to give their horses a breather.  “I heard they’d broke up in Kansas, got wiped by a Pinkerton ambush, and the rest of them hightailed down south.” Another memory wormed up, as he said this, and Ben smiled with sudden realisation.  “Seems they got picked off by snipers.  That was you?”

 

Dan’s lip curled, grim and thin.  “Didn’t get Bowden himself, though – I need him alive.  Just some of his men who didn’t know any better than to stay and fight a Pinkerton team.  Followed Bowden south, been looking for him since.”

 

“You’re going to try and make him talk.”

 

Dan shrugged.  “Ain’t no use breaking only the murder weapon.” He drank, tipping back his glass with a mechanical jerk, and dropped a handful of pesos on the counter that the bartender hastily scooped up. 

 

“Where’re you going?”

 

“East,” Dan eyed him, cool and collected and deadly, all that tightly controlled, single-minded focus honed into a weapon for vengeance, and Ben couldn’t help but feel both intrigued and disappointed, heat prickling at his collar, and he licked his lips, dry and chapped, fingers curling up against the counter.

 

“We’re heading east as well.”

 

Dan nodded slowly, as though this wasn’t news to him, rolling onto his feet and shifting the weight of his rifle over his shoulders.  “I’ll make sure you don’t see me.”

 

“From a sniper, that ain’t so friendly.” Ben smiled as he said it, but Dan merely stared evenly at him.

 

“I’ve got no beef with you, Wade.  You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

 

“Funny how the world turns.”

 

“It’s a goddamned long walk to the next train headed to Yuma, and I’m busy,” Dan said dryly, though the bitter edge to his tone stole all of its humor, but Ben chuckled anyway, his head tilted. 

 

“Actually, you’re building a name for yourself in these parts.  I’d come down looking for you.”

 

“Yeah?” Dan asked, wary.

 

“Lost some of my crew at Vernon.  I’m canvassing.” Ben spread his arms.  “Sniper’s always welcome.”

 

“I ain’t joining up with you, Wade.”

 

“How long have you been walking in circles around Mexico, Dan? Picked up much of the local lingo? Managed to get any locals to talk to you?” When Dan hesitated at the door, Ben pressed his advantage.  “You could circle around hereabouts for the rest of your life and never find Bowden, never know if he’s gone back north.  You’ll be wasting a lot of time crossing the border.”

 

“And you could do much better?”

 

“I speak the language.  _And_ Campos has a relative in every town.” This was admittedly an exaggeration, but not nearly.  “They’ll talk to him where they won’t talk to you.”

 

Dan regarded him silently, expressionless, then he said, at last, “I won’t kill or steal for you, Wade.”

 

God save him from the self-righteous.  “You want to head back north, find a translator willing to tag along, and head back down here again, be my guest.  Besides, could be that we’d end up working along the same lines.”

 

“What are you here for?”

 

“Word’s come that there’s a bullion train, headed out from near Ciudad.”

 

Dan’s eyebrows rose.  “Drug money from Juárez? You’ve done and become tired of living.”

 

“Maybe I’ve got a plan.” Ben tried another smile, one of the confident ones, and Dan visibly wavered, long fingers twitching at his gunbelt.  “We’ll be looking to pick up a few more men, ask around the towns for more information on the train.  Could be you’d pick up Bowden’s trail again before we get to Ciudad, in which case, you’ll go on your way, and I’ll go on mine.”

 

Dan seemed to weigh this up silently, thoughtfully.  “I can’t speak a word of Spanish.  So how do I know that you’ll truly be asking around about Bowden?”

 

“How have _you_ been asking about Bowden? You must have some sort of picture with you, a poster, maybe.  We’ll use that, and I’ll translate.  In exchange, up until then, you’ll watch my back.  Mexico’s a good place to have a sniper.” Dan Evans had a queer sense of honor – Ben thought it would be good odds that should they truly stumble upon Bowden on the way, Dan would very likely help them out with the heist out of obligation.

 

“After I find him,” Dan said quietly, “I’ll be dragging him back up north to a courthouse.”

 

“You know,” Ben drawled, “This could be so much easier if you just killed Hollander.  If you’re not up to dirtying your hands, I could send Nez or Campos up to do the job.  Just take a week or so.”

 

Dan narrowed his eyes, but it was only after a long, potent pause; the rancher’s rigid honor was cracking along the edges, scuffed roughshod in the brutal pace of a drifter’s life.  Ben couldn’t help but press up along the fractures; if or _when_ Dan’s new life finally shook him all to pieces, it was going to be spectacular.  “There has to be a case, a judgment.” His voice was steady, but he didn’t sound entirely certain.

 

“Sure, Dan.  Leave it to a judge, a jury, a pack of lawyers, all men who can be paid off or leveraged,” Ben said, pity coloring his tone, and Dan bared his teeth, his good leg shifting slightly back, as if about to go into a crouch, the sudden spark of rage blessedly familiar; this, the elemental side of Dan, was the part he’d _missed_.  He could feel his prick stir at the violence in Dan’s eyes, the way his hands were curling into claws- 

 

Just as quickly as it had come, however, Dan drew himself up stiffly, and tipped his hat, then stalked out of the saloon without another word.  Ben smirked to himself, turning back towards the barkeeper, and nudging out his empty glass.

 

1.0

 

Joining up with the Pinkertons had required a referral from Butterfield, even with the reputation he’d built in Contention, but it almost hadn’t taken, up until a grizzled old agent had sauntered out of the backroom of their Colorado office straight into the interview and casually offered to vouch for him.  McElroy’s brother Jake was a tracker and a sniper, who preferred hunting outlaws to guarding convoys, and Dan had learned fast, learned hard.  He’d known that he had to change, known that he’d had to be patient.

When Bowden’s gang scattered south, Dan tendered his resignation, put his earnings in a bank (albeit with an air of irony), had a drink with Jake McElroy, and set his feet south with a hundred dollars in his pocket.  Mexico was an unexpected land, all fantastically shaped landscapes, with unforgiving, craggy reddish rock wind-sharpened into incredible designs.  The towns tended to be neat, white-box affairs stepped on packed sand and dirt, its nut-brown people unpredictable and dangerous.  Dan took to living on the go, venturing into towns only to purchase ammunition or to try and pick up Bowden’s trail.

 

He’d picked up the tail of the wrong outlaw in Ímuris, but it was difficult to feel annoyed at the waste of time, watching Ben Wade leave town with his gang, his deadly little guard dog yapping at his side, the Apache taking up the flank and the Mexican sharpshooter at the rear.  In some other world, where Alice and Mark hadn’t died, Wade would have had done him a favor getting on that train when he could have called his men, killed Dan in the warehouse, or simply laid down on the roof and refused to move.  Dan would have _owed_ him. 

 

In this one, however, a thousand dollars weren’t going anywhere towards store-bought dresses or green pastures; Butterfield had promised to hold the money in trust, get William educated and shunted into a better life.  Dan supposed for what it was worth, that result was good enough to be shot up a few times for.

 

He turned his horse east, allowing it to thread its way slowly around prickly pears and stunted bush, allowing the dust from Wade’s horses to fade gradually forward, until it was a smudge along the winding road in the wavering horizon.  Bowden _could_ indeed be in Mexico for the heist, but Dan somehow doubted it.  Poking a hornet’s nest like Juárez and angering its drug barons was too crazy for a relatively small time outlaw like Bowden; it was more of a Ben Wade heist, needing equal parts luck, insanity and magic. 

 

Bowden had probably come south to rehire and recuperate.  Dan simply had to be patient, and above everything, stay far away from Wade’s particular brand of lunacy.  A handful of years, with so much water under the bridge, and Wade still hooked out the demon within him, so damned _easily_.

 

II

 

On hindsight, discussing his plans openly in Ímuris had not been one of his best ideas, and had the ambush been better planned, the _bandito_ posse could have killed most of his men.  They’d been jumped coming up a steep slope onto another plateau; rocks crushed Micky’s horse beneath him and spooked Nez’s into screaming and bucking, but they hadn’t reckoned for Charlie or Ben himself.  The Schofields barked even as Charlie expertly turned his horse, and a _bandito_ tumbled off the ledge, blood and death in slow motion.

 

The Hand of God accounted for another two, and Ben maneuvered his horse up against the ridged wall of the ravine, scanning the ledge.  A _bandito_ raised a shotgun to his shoulder, then jerked instead and slumped, his head blasted open.  Shouts and Nez’s war cry from the back indicated that half of the posse had belatedly stormed the rear, even as Charlie and Ben charged up out of the ravine, pistols smoking.

 

They’d emerged up into the old ruin of a town, the skeletal squares of white-box houses long faded to yellow, weed-choked, sharp jagged crags that hid the rest of the _bandito_ posse.  A _bandito_ in a wide-brimmed hat toting a rifle snapped back with a gurgled scream, even as Charlie swore, his horse shot out and squealing as it slumped to its side, pinning Charlie’s leg beneath it. 

 

Ben ignored Charlie’s struggling, dismounting to take cover behind a rotting door.  He could count four more… _three_ , as the one closest to his right abruptly staggered back in a drunken half-circle, clutching at his chest, and slumped down over a bush.  Squinting, he fired at the _bandito_ with the red-check headband at the far left, growling as the man jerked back under cover; his second shot found its mark, smashing into the bald head of a _bandito_ creeping forward against an upturned table.  Seeing this, one _bandito_ gave a wild yell and turned to flee, dropping his rifle – grimly, Ben shot him in the back, then looked back up to find Red-Check dropping to his knees, his chest a red ruin.

 

With a final oath, Charlie dragged himself out from under his dead horse, wild-eyed, drawing his Schofields back from their holsters, and Ben frowned, glancing at red-check, then back at his right-hand man.  So Charlie hadn’t been the one to shoot-

 

Nez rode out from the ravine, rifle upraised, then he reined his horse and nodded to Ben, surveying the dead men with pursed lips.  He was followed by Campos, then Micky, on foot, his Irish burr roughening as he swore a blue streak, leading a horse with a bloodied saddle.  The two rake-thin Mexican twins, cousins of Campos, followed on up, darting silent, suspicious glances behind them, but Prospector and Racksfield were dead, the reins of Racksfield’s Pinto wound tight in Campos’ hand.  Wordlessly, he passed the reins to Charlie. 

 

Ben glanced down into the ravine, looking over the slumped bodies of Prospector and Racksfield to the four _bandito_ bleeding out into the dirt behind them.  “We’ll take the ammunition,” he decided, calculating the distance to the next town and the possible danger spots in his mind.  “And the weapons, if they’re any good.”

 

Campos nodded to him, then to his cousins, and they dismounted, heading back down into the ravine even as Nez circled silently around them, squinting into the distance.  The Apache had the sharpest eyes of any man whom Ben had met, and after a while, he grunted in satisfaction and pointed. 

 

In the distance, behind an anvil-shaped crag on a sloping hill and the wavering air from the midday sun, Ben could just make out the shape of a man in storm grays, slinging a rifle onto his back and mounting up on a horse, then disappearing quickly into the shadow of the hill. 

 

“Three hundred yards at least, boss,” Charlie said grudgingly, with a backward glance at the body of Red-Check, then at the body slumped over the bush.  It seemed that the Pinkertons had been good for Dan Evans.

 

Ben nodded slowly, mounting his horse, then reloading his pistol.  “We’ll need to reach Cananea before sunset.”

 

“What about the rancher?”

 

“He’ll come to us.” Ben holstered his pistol and pushed his knees into his horse, urging it into a trot as Micky and the others finished looting the bodies.  “Mount up, boys.  Let’s keep moving.”

 

2.0

 

Dan slunk into Cananea at night, careful to keep his hat down and an eye out.  The mining town was rowdy even at this ungodly hour, with raucous shouting, spilling light and laughter from the saloons and the whorehouses.  He found a boarding house on the outskirts with a close-mouthed, sallow Chinese landlord and paid up for a room, dragging himself gratefully up greasy stairs and through the foggy, sickly-rich scent of opium smoke wafting from some of the closed rooms to the second floor.  The narrow bed was clean enough, and Dan hung up his hat and coat, lined his boots up against the bed, and slept with his rifle hugged close and his pistol under his pillow, exhausted.

 

He woke to the sound of a pencil scratching on paper, and swore, scrambling for his pistol.  Ben Wade grinned lazily up at him from a chair at the corner of the room, sketching, looking trimmed and sleek, all the blood and gunpowder washed away.  “Morning, Dan.  These here parts, you should really wedge a chair under your door when you go to sleep.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dan didn’t lower his gun.  “What do you want?”

 

“You know what I want.”

 

“I said I wasn’t going to join up.”

 

Wade inclined his head, as though that was only a temporary setback.  “So you told me, Dan.” He angled the pencil down, shading in his work.  “Thanks for the hand yesterday.”

 

Dan didn’t say anything, tight-lipped.  To tell the truth, he wasn’t sure _why_ he’d intervened, following Wade’s gang at a safe distance and wondering idly all the while whether he was better off heading southeast towards smaller towns.  Cananea had been a good bet for someone like Bowden; a mining town with women and hard liquor and blackjack tables, but he was risking trouble going at it by slinking after Ben Wade’s trail dust.  Finally, he decided on a gruff, “I owed you.”

 

“Did you now.” Wade’s tone was nearly mocking.

 

“You didn’t have to get on that train.  Didn’t have to keep your gang from shooting me down.”

 

“I got off the train pretty quick, afterwards,” Wade pointed out, though he smiled, enigmatic, a cat prowling around a canary.  “What _are_ you doing here, Dan? You think that learning the road for a few years from the Pinks and a bellyful of vengeance is going to get you what you want?”

 

“Why not?”

 

“World’s full of men like Hollander.  Let’s say you manage to get him convicted, that Bowden’s going to help you talk Hollander into a rope even though you’ve got nothing to offer him other than another empty noose.  What then? You’ve given a railroad man all your money, you’ve lost your son and your farm.”

 

“Ain’t your concern.”

 

“People think I’m dangerous,” Wade mused, as though to himself, “But it’s men like you who’re worse.  I can cut back, drop something, move on.  You’ll follow through to the very last, hell take the consequences.” He rocked up from his chair, smirked when Dan leveled the pistol higher, tracking Wade’s devil-may-care smirk even as the outlaw stuffed the black book and the pencil back into his jacket.  “Bowden left town yesterday, headed east.  San José.”

 

“I doubt that.” Bowden was wanted in San José, which was steadily accumulating Pinkertons, what with the growing unrest south of the border.  Warily, Dan lowered his pistol.  “Best you circle around as well.”

 

“Don’t need you to tell me that,” Wade agreed, sauntering for the door.  “Sure you don’t want to come along? It’ll get worse, the further we get east.”

 

“You watch your own back,” Dan retorted, annoyed at the presumption, and Wade tipped his black hat at him with a smirk and let himself out.

 

Exhaling, Dan slumped back down on the bed, rubbing at his eyes.  Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to check San José. 

 

-tbc… see how far I can go with this one. :3-


	2. Chapter 2

[A/N: Nb: Historical inaccuracy.  There was a tramway from Juárez but no railroad down to Chihuahua I think…  Place is too violent.  Also, there are tons of places called San Jose in the world, very confusing to use google maps and wiki with.]

 

Platitudes

Part 2

 

III

 

Jake McElroy was a year younger than his late brother, and looked older, whiskers and sideburns bleached white over bulldog features blotched with liver spots, his twin pair of well-loved Colts hidden under his jacket, hat pulled down over his eyes as he sat on a bench in the sun, just outside the general store in San José, wrinkled hands folded over his belly, for all appearances a contented old man enjoying the sunshine. 

 

The afternoon grew lazier as the heat climbed, ponies drooping as they dragged wagons over the streets, people lounging on benches or disappearing into stores and houses.  The sun baked the stench of animal filth, human waste and spilled lamp oil, civilization floating in a choking blanket over the street, and Jake fought the urge to reach for his watch-chain, trying not to breathe in too deeply.  This wasn’t the rambling city with the same name growing up northwest in the heart of California, or the new railway station south of Juárez, only a small town with a similar name sitting on the border, but it was already a notch too urban for Jake’s usual tastes.

 

He didn’t look up when the bench creaked beside him, though he flicked a glance under his hat at the storm gray jacket and the dusty old boots, the muzzle of the Sharps rifle pressed against the splintering wooden slats of the store.  “Daniel Evans.”

 

“Sir.” Evans had been an unsuccessful military boy before he had been an unsuccessful rancher, and he’d never been able to let go of some habits. 

 

“Found your man yet?”

 

“No sir.” There was tension in Evans’ voice, wound up tight, and Jake tilted up his head, squinting against the sun with watery gray eyes sunk deep into pouchy skin. 

 

“I did tole’ you about Mexico.  You ain’t gonna find anyone if you don’t speak a word of Spanish.” When Dan didn’t answer, instead appearing to stare hard at his gloved hands, Jake added, a touch more kindly, “Evans, you’re an honest man and you’re a decent shot.  You want to come back to the Pinkertons, I’ll put a word in for you.”

 

“Thank you kindly, but I haven’t given up.  And it ain’t what I’m here for.” Evans took a breath, then seemed to deflate.  “I was told that Bowden came up through San Jose.”

 

“First I’d have heard of it, but I haven’t been walking around much.” Jake frowned, thinking slowly back over the past week that he’d been here, waiting for another assignment and arguing with the branch manager.  “You want me to put a word out?”

 

“Please.”

 

“Well then, come on up.” Creakily, uttering a sharp curse as his knee ached, Jake pulled himself onto his feet, and began to walk briskly in the direction of the Pinkerton office, without looking back to see if Evans was following. 

 

Evans trotted up to his side, though he still looked ill at ease, his eyes darting left and right, until Jake paused and stared hard at him.  “You’re mighty jumpy, Evans.  Something wrong?”

 

“I…” Evans hesitated, then he exhaled loudly.  “I saw Ben Wade in Mexico.  He tracked me down, though he didn’t know who I was at the start – he was looking for a sniper.  He said that he was in Mexico for some sort of bullion train, from Juárez, and he thought that Bowden was there for the same deal.”

 

“Something like that would be too big for scum like the Bowden gang.” Jake said, shaking his head as he continued to walk down the street, ignoring a mounted mailman who cantered by, his horse sweating and wheezing.  “It’s just crazy enough for a Ben Wade deal.”

 

“You don’t seem concerned.”

 

“He may have killed my brother, but he ain’t wanted in Mexico, not yet.” The walkway creaked as Jake stepped up onto it, turning the corner; he could see the pale steeple of the church, in the distance up ahead, and a couple of buildings beside it, the unassuming, squat two-storey building that was the temporary Pinkerton office in San José.  “With any luck, he’d be caught by the drug barons and killed the way he deserves it.”

 

“All right,” Evans said, and he seemed to relax.  “I just thought that you should know.”

 

“Concerned that I’d go haring after him, to avenge my brother?” Jake snorted, as he crossed the street towards the Pinkerton office.  “Vengeance is for younger people.  A man like Ben Wade will meet a right end, sooner or later.  When he grows older.  Slower.  Or just plain careless.  Funny how he let you walk away.”

 

“He wasn’t looking to start no trouble.  Just searching for a sniper.  Once I turned him down, he left.” Evans said, a little evasively.

 

Jake had heard stories from Contention, likely blown all out of connection, about how a rancher with a peg leg had managed to maneuver the notorious Ben Wade single-handedly onto a train.  He’d personally had his doubts, which was why he’d vouched for Daniel Evans and offered to babysit; it’d been to get the measure of the ex-rancher, to see if Evans had been in Wade’s pocket all along. 

 

Jake had also since concluded that Evans was certainly not any breed of man to turn outlaw, and the matter of Contention stayed as murky as it had always been. “Jim,” he said, stepping into the Pinkerton building and addressing the stout, waistcoated man at the reception counter, “I want an alert out for Nicky Bowden.  Got word that he’s in San Jose.”

 

“We ain’t got a warrant outstanding on our ledgers for a ‘Bowden, Nicky’,” Jim said fussily, opening a thick, dog-eared book.  This early in the day, the Pinkerton reception was empty, the waiting benches dusted clean, the day’s paper stacked on a side table, a framed poster of the Pinkerton symbol hung high behind the reception.  As far as Jake reckoned it, the temporary agency was converted from a doctor’s office, and it was here to stay until the agency decided that there wasn’t much good work left this close to drug barons and their territories.  “That last ambush’s award’s been paid up in full and withdrawn.”

 

“Warrant or not, he’d done killed a Pinkerton man’s wife and kid, Jim,” Jake said, with a touch of impatience.  “Put the goddamn alert out.”

 

“Right away, Mister McElroy,” Jim looked aggrieved, though he obligingly rounded the counter, towards the backroom.  “You need him alive?”

 

“I need him alive,” Evans said quietly.  “And I’ll pay a finder’s fee.  Two hundred.”

 

“Two hundred dollars it is,” Jim’s little round eyes brightened visibly, pudgy fingers working the lock and slipping into the backroom, where his reedy voice could be heard calling out instructions.  Jake gripped Evans by the elbow, edging him towards the door.

 

“We could have done it for free.”

 

“I ain’t a Pinkerton man right now.” Evans replied, though he walked out of the building obligingly. 

 

“Like I’ve told you before, you’re too honest for this kind of life,” Jake pointed out, if good-naturedly.  “Let’s head over to the saloon for some whisky.”

 

“Ain’t it a bit early in the day, sir?”

 

“Don’t go mouthing off to me, son.  And then you can tell me about all that trouble you’d gone stirring on up, south of the border.”

 

3.0

 

As it turned out, Bowden had stayed in San José long enough to get a change of horses and get supplies, then he’d left ‘right hurriedly, like the devil was on his heels’, to take the Farlake stablehand’s colorful opinion, headed back south.  Dan entrusted an awkwardly written letter for William to McElroy the younger and went back on the road with his disgruntled chestnut Standardbred, ignoring invitations to rest up for the night or cast an eye over the outstanding Pinkerton jobs in Mexico.  He wasn’t there to make any money.

 

Dan lost the trail once he was out of the farmlands, despite painstakingly questioning all unsuspecting travelers and the occasional hunter.  Bowden had vanished back into the vast, wild frontier, and Dan was helpless to do anything about it. 

 

Frustrated, Dan chanced upon a pack of _banditos_ terrorizing a stagecoach, and sent them running from his vantage point hidden behind an archway.  The grateful stagecoach driver and its passengers – a textile merchant, a pair of matrons visiting relatives, and a boy about William’s age on family business – understood a handful of broken English between them, and Dan ended up agreeing to accompany the coach to Agua Prieta.  They hadn’t seen Bowden, but they’d spotted a round, black-hatted man accompanied by an Apache and ‘six, seven’ others, riding east.   

 

Unsettled by Jake McElroy’s words and unable to understand most of the stagecoach passengers’ prattle, Dan assumed a stony silence as he kept pace with them.  Agua Prieta was a tiny mining settlement built by the Phelps Company, and he didn’t have much hope of finding any leads there. 

 

As it turned out, Agua Prieta had a couple of Pinkerton men, employed by the Phelps Company to help keep the peace.  They hadn’t heard of Bowden, but Ben Wade was the talk of the town, having apparently been the winner of some sort of quick draw in Cabullona.

 

More importantly, the Pinkerton men mentioned the new railroad, between Juárez and Chihuahua.  Plagued by violence and delays and funded almost entirely by drug money, it was about to have an inaugural opening within the month – provided that the bloody drug wars paused long enough to allow it.  The infamous and powerful drug baron Miguel Garcia had announced that the maiden train would be a bullion train; and had publicly challenged outlaws to rob it.  If Bowden was an outlaw, the Pinkerton men commented, he was probably there to join up with one of the larger local gangs gathering up at Nuevo Bianca or war bands from rival drug barons, looking to try their luck.

 

With an increasing sense of unease, Dan turned his horse eastward still.  If Bowden had an eye on a share of the bullion, he’d have to catch up with the man before the train started its run, or he might never be able to find Bowden alive.

 

IV

 

Kissing Charlie Prince was always more like wrestling than coupling, trying to pin down the sleek young man’s enthusiastically grabbing hands and keep his mouth occupied long enough that he didn’t try to bite down anywhere visible.  Charlie grinned through it all the while, manic and wild-eyed like a cornered animal, rubbing the bulge in his tight breeches shamelessly over Ben’s thigh.  At least he knew how to be quiet, even when Ben dragged open the collar of his shirt and bit down over his shoulder.

 

He felt Charlie’s trigger fingers hook in his gun belt as the younger man gasped and arched back against the rock outcrop, then he stiffened abruptly.  Instantly, Ben looked up and over his shoulder, his hand hovering over his pistol.  “Charlie?”

 

“Heard someone.” Charlie said flatly, his Schofields already in hand.  “Down over by them trees at the round rock.”

 

That was a good couple of hundred yards away, but Charlie had sharp night vision and sharper ears, and Ben straightened regretfully, drawing his pistol, then he frowned as a shadow detached itself from the copse – a familiar outline of a man on a horse, a rifle against his back.  “Wade?”

 

“Dan Evans.” Ben sheathed his gun, and after shooting Charlie a hard stare, his right-hand man did so as well, if with an angry curl to his lip.  “Well, come on closer. Charlie, go and tell Nez that it’s his turn to watch.”

 

Charlie nodded slowly, understanding Ben’s meaning instantly, and slipped away.  If Dan had come as a scout for a band of Pinks, Nez would be the best man in their party to pick out any approaching party. 

 

Dan dismounted once he got closer, leading his horse, then stopping warily at a respectful distance.  “What the hell did I just see?”

 

Ah.  It just about figured that the first man that Ben Wade felt so instantly attracted to for longer than he could goddamn remember was one of _those_ sorts.  “I don’t know, Dan.  What _did_ you see?”

 

“Sure as hell looked like you were kissing a man.”

 

“Would’a gone more than that if you’d stayed quiet,” Ben grinned lazily, the devil in his tone, his hand hitched back just a fraction to go for his gun if Dan so much as reached for his.  “You were a soldier, Dan.  You can’t never have seen the like.”

 

“I… well…” Dan said helplessly, “I mean, I might of… might _’ve_ , but there was you and Em… the Bisbee saloon girl, then hell, you were chatting up Alice-”

 

Well, this was a good sign.  Ben relaxed a fraction.  “I’ve got a weakness for women with green eyes.  Though, where your lovely late wife was concerned, that was just me riling you up so that nobody would see me pocketing your fork.”

 

“You’re only a few days’ ride from Nuevo Bianca.  There’s a brothel there,” Dan said, accusingly now, his left hand wound tight over the reins of his horse.  “Mining town.”

 

“Being with a man is a world different from knowing a woman, Mister Evans,” Ben kept his tone sly, a little mocking.  “It can be a world better.  You should try it sometime.”

 

“It’s a sin.”

 

“Killing people is a sin.  Thieving is a sin, mouthing off to your parents is a sin, so’s lying, cheating, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor’s wife, or using the Lord’s name in vain.  Don’t tell me you’re pure as driven snow; I sure as hell saw you kill quite a few family men in Contention.  The way I reckon it,” Ben clapped his hands together in an arch gesture of prayer, “The Lord’s got to give some leeway somewhere, or sacrifice another son, or Heaven’s gonna be a mighty empty place.”

 

“You ain’t gonna get to Heaven, Wade.” This was said with a touch more conviction than the last.

 

“Well then, since that’s settled, I might as well do whatever I like while I’m still trying to shuck off my mortal coil.”

 

Dan stared at him, as though bewildered, for a moment, then he looked away quickly as Ben pointedly adjusted himself through his breeches.  Instead of some sort of self-righteous outburst, however, the ex-rancher merely sighed.  “Bowden’s likely headed to Nuevo Bianca, to join up with one of the outlaw gangs looking to steal the bullion.”

 

“Fancy that, what an original idea.”

 

“Are you heaving to Nuevo Bianca?”

 

“Am I going to take my men into a mining town full of cheap spirits and desperate men looking to reduce the competition on a heist? No.” Ben folded his arms.  “Besides, a little bird told me that Bianca’s very likely a trap.  More likely than not, you’d get Garcia’s army cutting through it shortly enough, murder every man jack in that place who knows how to fire a gun.”

 

“Then Bowden’s probably not there.”

 

“Didn’t say that.  It’s a good place to look up a man seeking to join a bigger gang, if you didn’t mind being shot in the back.”

 

“I’ve been shot in the back before,” Dan pointed out humorlessly.  “Didn’t take.  Well, ah… thanks for your time then, Wade.”

 

“You tracked me down just for that?”

 

“Sure,” Dan said, if a little uncomfortably.

 

Ben smirked.  “You were looking to get into Nuevo Bianca unnoticed by hiding under my coat?”

 

“By appearing to be a member of your gang,” Dan looked irritated at the description.  “You’re the man with the big name.  Nobody would give the rest of your gang a second glance.  But if you’re not going, then I’ll be on my way.”

 

“You walk into town by yourself, you’re very likely to get yourself killed.”

 

“I can take care of myself, Wade.” Dan said wearily, making as if to mount back up on his horse, and what had to be the devil himself caused Ben to step forward quickly and grab his arm.

 

“Wait.  If we help you get Bowden, would you help me with the heist?” As Dan hesitated, Ben added, “All I’ll ask you to do is watch my back.  If you’re sure that Bowden is in Nuevo Bianca, you might never find him before the army comes, let alone find a way to drag him out back north by yourself.  There’s a Pinkerton jail in Deming, you could drop him off there and come back.”

 

Dan stared at him, astonished, for a long moment, then he shook off Ben’s hand.  “There’s sure to be better snipers out there than me.”

 

“I’ve seen what you’re willing to do once you agree to something.  If I’m going to try and pull off once of the biggest heists of my career, it’d be good to have people like you watching my back.” Dan’s brow furrowed deeper, and Ben pressed on.  “It’s drug money, Dan.  Blood money.  It’s not like we’re robbing farmers or ranchers.”

 

“You take that gold and you’d be spending the rest of your life looking over your back.”

 

“I already will be.  If you’re concerned, then stay out of sight, like any good sniper.  Wear a mask, maybe,” Ben said, if not without a trace of mockery.  “How about that, Dan? I help you get Bowden, you help me get the gold.”

 

Dan made a show of fussing with his tack, then he looked back up at Ben even as he pulled himself onto his horse.  “Thanks for the offer, Wade.  But I ain’t gonna make deals with outlaws just to make my life easier.”

 

Charlie sidled out from behind the outcrop once Dan had made his way back to the main road and was riding briskly into the distance.  “Stubborn bastard.  We don’t need him, boss.”

 

“We sure don’t.  But it’s people like him who make life a little more entertaining,” Ben said, turning to regard Charlie with a lopsided smirk.  Used to his moods, Charlie narrowed his eyes.

 

“You _said_ we weren’t going to head into Nuevo Bianca, boss.”

 

“I might have a little investment to protect.  Also, it doesn’t hurt to take a look at the competition, all quiet like.  If you take the men southeast you’d reach Baleno, near Montezuma; wait for me there.”

 

“Campos will wait there with the rest.  If you’re going to do something crazy I’m going with you.”

 

“We’ll be playing by my rules in Bianca,” Wade dropped his voice to a low growl, pressing Charlie back up against the rock and smirking as he squirmed, his breath hitching.  “I ain’t going to appreciate any initiative from you.”

 

“Any way you want, boss,” Charlie pressed hungrily back up against him, teeth bared, and Wade dragged his chin up to expose his throat.

 

4.0

 

Dan had set up camp a day and a half away from Nuevo Bianca with a pack of wagoneers who had just headed out of town; miners quietly evacuating the mining settlement, apparently, and for the most part managed to sidle out unmolested; the outlaw gangs were more interested in sizing up one another than wasting ammunition shooting up the harmless.  Not even the Phelps Company was trying to enforce working contracts with all the convicts and outlaws and drug barons who had set up camp within town; the Company’s employees were told to stay back at the mines or stay out of the area altogether if they could afford it.

 

One of the wagoneers was a halfblood Irishman called Doyle, wiry and hunched, his fingernails black from the mines and his skin bleached pale and unhealthy; he stank of stale whisky and cheap tobacco, but he was friendly where the rest of the locals were not.  “You’re heading into Bianca, Evans?”

 

“I got business there, but it ain’t with the bullion or with the Company.  I’m looking for a man named Nicky Bowden.”

 

“You must be a Pinkerton,” Doyle said, with an air of sly wisdom.  “Only a Pink would be crazy enough to walk into that town by hisself on business that ain’t to do with the bullion, and doing some bounty hunting at that.”

 

Dan didn’t respond, curling up instead over his bedroll, even as one of the other miners plucked at Doyle’s sleeve and whispered to him urgently.  Doyle nodded and eyed Dan thoughtfully.  “Ramirez here wants to know what’s it worth to you, information about Nicky Bowden.”

 

“I’ve got…” Dan patted himself, thinking back.  “American money.  Ten dollars.”

 

“Twenty,” Doyle countered.

 

“Twelve.  I ain’t gonna know if your information’s any good.”

 

Doyle had a brief consultation with the miner.  “Bulky guy, my height, ‘bout dirty yeller hair, a Colt and a Winchester, scar up his right palm, muttonchop moustache?”

 

That was a fair description.  “Fifteen.”

 

Another brief consultation, then Doyle nodded, and Dan paid up, counting out coin and notes conscientiously. 

 

“The one you’re looking for is staying in Ruiz’s, it’s on the east quarter nearest to the mines, a boarding house with green window frames.  He’s looking to join up with Martinez.”

 

“Who’s Martinez?”

 

“I gather he’s pretty well known deeper into Mexico, for train robberies.  Big gang.  Tall man, one eyed.” A couple of the miners muttered and crossed themselves fervently.  “Funny locals think he done some deals with the old gods.  He been shot twice in the head before, and just got madder.  He’s got some beef with Garcia; used to keep clear of Chihuahua.”

 

“He gonna mind if one of his gang suddenly goes missing?”

 

Doyle translated for the miners, who spoke against themselves, and seemed to come to some sort of consensus.  “Unless this Bowden is a big shot, I doubt Martinez would have taken him.  He’s known to be fussy.  Not as fussy as Ben Wade,” Dan tried not to flinch in surprise at the sudden mention, “But he won’t just take in anyone.”

 

“Who’s the Company man in Bianca?” That was good news.  Extricating Bowden quietly was going to be bad enough, let alone having to fight off gang leaders.

 

“That’d be Brennan.  He’d be holed up at the mines with the rest of us poor bastards what didn’t have no place to go.”

 

The Phelps Company sometimes employed Pinkertons – it was possible that Brennan could prove useful, or at the least, friendly.  “Thanks.  Here’s another five dollars, a token of appreciation.”

 

“Save your coin, Pinkerton.” Doyle grinned, with a yellowed gap-toothed smile.  “Best you have some money to be buried with.”

 

-tbc-


	3. Chapter 3

 

V

 

Charlie had looked scandalized when Ben had borrowed Campos’ sombrero and stuffed his beloved black hat in a saddlebag once they were within sight of Nuevo Bianca, but he wasn’t looking to be recognized.  He had ten men, sufficient for his purposes even if Dan Evans stubbornly refused to play along, and he wasn’t going to be in town to do any recruiting.

 

They managed to mosey into Nuevo Bianca late in the afternoon, and instead of making a beeline for the saloon, Ben hitched his horse outside the gun store, a building close to the center of the street, perhaps ironically snug up against another, narrower store labeled ‘Medical’ with white words painted on a black plank.  Nuevo Bianca looked deceptively silent, and if not for the large number of horses hitched at the saloon or at the stables, Ben would have thought his information incorrect. 

 

Most of the shops and houses were boarded shut, and the benches and rocking chairs lining the boardwalks were empty.  Down the end of the street, Ben could make out a Phelps Company office emblazoned with their insignia, with a dead man strung up over the doorway, twisting gently in space. 

 

The gun store was nearly bare except for a handful of revolvers in a glass case, upon which the shopkeeper was leaning on, a shotgun pointed dead ahead at them.  The other glass case beside him looked recently smashed, and the shopkeeper was sporting a purpling bruise over his right eye, and a split lip that was still mending.

 

“Whoah, sir.” Ben raised his hands palms up.  “We’re here to buy.”

 

“I ain’t got no more ‘munitions to sell,” the small, thin old man said in a quavering, reedy voice.  “So unless you’d be buying one of these here guns, I’ll take it kindly if you could come back in a couple of months.”

 

Charlie tensed, beside him, but Ben shot him a hard, sidelong glance and his hand dropped back down loosely by his side.  “Been a difficult week for you, sir?” Ben asked politely.

 

“Since every manner of scum up and crawled into a God-fearin’ town, it has been,” the shopkeeper said wearily.  “Why, you know they strung up that there sheriff four days ago, on that old tree outside his jail? The Phelps Company’s barricaded the mine with snipers, they’re shooting anyone who gets close, even us normal folks.”

 

“Sounds like every God-fearing man should leave and take his chances,” Ben said, as gently as he could.  “Like you, old timer.  There’s still miners headed down west, if you rode out now on a decent horse you’d catch up.”

 

“Thank you, sir,” the shotgun barrel, however, didn’t waver.  “But I’ve got a sickly girl upstairs to keep a watch on, she won’t survive out in the desert.  And if you’re here to buy supplies you’d take an old man’s warning and head back out of town, you and your young friend.  Those animals in the saloon’d be murdering all those poor girls living in sin over at the Madame’s, God have mercy on them, and then they’d be looking at anyone good looking next, man or woman.”

 

“Thank you kindly, but my friend can take care of himself,” Ben carefully hid his grin.  “And you don’t need to worry about us, old timer.  The wicked shall flee when pursued, but the righteous shall be as bold as a lion.  Proverbs, twenty eight.” Beside him, Charlie stiffened, but kept his ‘good looking’ features thankfully expressionless.

 

“Well,” the safety clicked back on, and the shotgun was placed on the counter with shaking hands.  “I see you’re a good man, sir, a God-fearin’ man.  My apologies for all that, I can’t be so sure of people nowadays, with my daughter and all.  So what are you looking for? Like I said, I don’t got no more ‘munitions.”

 

“The gun store’s a good place to go for information when the saloon’s full up on animals,” Ben smiled winningly.  “Ain’t that right, old timer? Especially if I happen to be looking for any man who might have come by searching for a man in gray buying sniper ammunition.”

 

“That’d be Nicky,” the old man said, almost as an afterthought.  “He comes by every evening when he’s had a couple of shots of whisky.  Maybe give or take an hour or so from now.  Big man, about your size, muttonchop whiskers.  Do I want to know what he did?”

 

“He murdered the wife and son of a friend of mine,” Ben silently congratulated himself on his good luck.  It had been a little of a long shot, but a man afraid of a sniper would most likely check every gunsmith in town; rolling block rifle ammunition was hard to come by.  “Shot them dead in their house when he was away, and then burned it to the ground.  His kid was only about five, six years old, poor mite.  We’ll be taking him north, to justice.”

 

“Poor old souls.” The old man crossed himself fervently.  “Well, I’ll let you know which one it is when he comes by, but I can’t help you further.”

 

“No need for that.  You’ve got a wagon out around the back, old timer? Get your daughter ready to move.  I’ve got word that Garcia’s men are coming,” Ben raised his voice slightly as the old man looked ready to protest.  “If you go up north, you’d get to Deming after a couple of days.  Start packing.  You should head out before sundown.”

 

“Thank you sir,” the old man said humbly.  “My name’s Bill Thompson, and I’ll put a word in with God for you the next time I pray, if I could know your names.”

 

“I’m called Dan Evans,” Ben said, poker faced, “And my friend here is called Gregory Butterfield.”

 

“Well then, thank you again, Mister Evans.” The old man nodded quickly, scooping all the revolvers into a cloth bag, and scuttled off to the backroom.  Ben circled around the counter to lean up against it, watching the door, and he jerked his head at Charlie, who nodded and sidled up to press himself beside the doorframe, watching the window.  Having a civilian around would prove messy; people tended to cluck and run about in panic like chickens when frightened. 

 

“This is going to be a long wait,” Charlie said quietly, “If the rancher’s already found his man.  Assuming that neither of them managed to get themselves killed.”

 

“We’ll wait until night comes, then circle around.  If he’s done some arresting, someone would have seen it.” Ben shrugged.  Dan would have had the whole town to search, or at least, all the rooming houses, and chances were, Bowden would have holed up in the saloon during the daytime if he were afraid of snipers.  Desperate as Dan was, Ben rather doubted that he was stupid enough to waltz into a saloon full of outlaws and attempt to make some sort of citizen’s arrest. 

 

Hopefully.

 

As it turned out, they didn’t have long to wait.  Charlie abruptly flattened himself against the wall, with a sharp look at Ben when the door to the shop was suddenly kicked open, and a florid man strode in, broad shouldered, a small head with a high forehead crammed into a round brown hat, his pudgy nose nearly swallowed by a rich, muttonchop moustache.  A dirty brown bandana was drawn across his throat, and a vest buttoned tight over his belly seemed to barely rein in his bulk.  His white shirts were rolled to the waist, revealing a long scar up his right palm, almost to the elbow, jagged and poorly healed.

 

“Thompson!” Nicky Bowden barked, then he narrowed his eyes as he stared at Ben.  “Who the hell are _you_?”

 

Ben smiled, even as Charlie clapped the muzzle of one of his Schofields to Nicky’s head and released the safety.  “Hello, Nicky.  You’ve been a hard man to track down.  Tell your men outside to put their weapons away.  I see there’re three of them, all nice, strapping lads who might not look kindly to a gunshot through your head.”

 

“You… you a Pinkerton?” Nicky growled, red-faced.

 

“I’ve killed men who mistook me for a Pinkerton,” Ben said idly, drawing his pistol from his holster and placing it on the counter.  “Recognise this, Nicky?”

 

Bowden’s small eyes widened.  “God in Heaven, you’re Ben _Wade_.”

 

“Good, good.  Now that we all understand one another,” Ben said amiably, “How about we talk business, Nicky.  I hear you’ve been trying to join up with Martinez.  How’s that going?”

 

“You know those sly Mexican snakes, they only want to employ their own kind,” Bowden said angrily.  “You looking to get at the bullion?”

 

“Everyone this part of Mexico is looking to do so,” Ben smiled.  “Now I know you’ve probably been asking around town.  Care to let me know where the competition stands?”

 

“Sure, uh, Mister Wade, but does your, uh, friend really need to keep pointing his gun at me?”

 

Ben inclined his head at Charlie, who smiled wide and holstered his Schofields.  “Don’t take it personally, Nicky,” Charlie said, if mockingly.

 

Ben chuckled.  “There, now we’re friends.  We are friends aren’t we, Nicky?”

 

“Sure… sure thing, Mister Wade.” Bowden said nervously.  “Sorry about before, I have a Pinkerton on my tail.  Man all in gray, a sniper.  He nearly got me a few times.” 

 

“I don’t see any gray Pinkertons around here.  But I need a bit of a favor from your men for now,” Ben added, looking thoughtfully out of the door.  “Mister Thompson here happens to be a friend of mine, and he needs to leave town.  I need your boys to help him load up his wagon with whatever he needs, give him some money, and help him gently load Miss Thompson onto the cart and make her comfortable.  Can they do that for me?”

 

“Sure thing, Mister Wade, anything for a friend of yours.” Bowden turned to regard his men.  “You heard him.  Go!”

 

Ben glanced at Charlie.  “Best you go with them in case the old man gets trigger happy.  And once everything’s loaded up and you’ve made sure that the old man is on his way, I’d like you to thank them all kindly in that backroom.  Get Mister Thompson’s shotgun, it’s all but falling to pieces.  Don’t want him to hurt himself.”

 

Charlie nodded slowly, albeit with a sly smirk, and strode towards the backroom, followed by Bowden’s men.

 

“Draw up a chair, Nicky, and tell me about the competition.”

 

Bowden dragged a stool up from against the wall with his heel and sat down awkwardly.  “Well, uh, there’s Martinez, like you already know.  He’s got twenty-five, thirty men, and a plan to blow up the railway, I think he’s got the best bet of the lot.  Then there are the Alvarez brothers; they have about twenty men or so.  And the drug baron Delgado is rumored to have his eye on the train, he’s been looking to expand into Chihuahua for a while now.  Those are the bands that are already here.  There’s others that might have gathered east of Juárez itself.”

 

“All right.” That confirmed what Campos had found out to date.  “Are you interested in signing up with my men, Nicky?”

 

“Ain’t nobody who hasn’t heard of Ben Wade.  ‘Course I’ll be happy to,” Bowden said, with a broad smile.  “It’s an honor that you’ve heard of me.  I’ve heard that you don’t just pick nobody for your team.”

 

“Just a few little details first before we get out of town,” Ben said amicably, “That gray Pinkerton after you, what’s that about? I ain’t too fond of Pinks.”

 

“Don’t know.  I reckon probably someone put a big bounty on me,” Bowden confided, looking pleased with himself.  “That man’s been unshakable.  Has to be one of their best.  He’s been stalking me since I did a heist up north ‘round Colorado.”

 

Ben reflected that the best of the Pinkertons was still lying dead in a pit in Apache territory, but he nodded anyway.  “Heard you burned a ranch out near Bisbee.  I prefer my boys professional.  No killing for the sake of killing, no going after the small time.  You got paid for that razing?”

 

Bowden looked confused at the question.  “No sir.  Well, er, we was hungry at that time, had been riding hard for two days running from Pinkertons.  We came across that ranch and shot one of the cattle.  Didn’t have anything to cook it with, so I went up to the house to see if I could borrow something, maybe pay for the steer if they wanted.  Opened the door and there was this lady with a hunting rifle, she screamed and raised the gun, so I shot her, and at some movement I saw behind a door.”

 

“Movement?”

 

Bowden spat hard on the floor and crossed himself.  “Turned out it was just some damned skinny little kid.  Fucking luck, crazy bitch, but getting marked for killing a woman and a kid brings you trouble like you won’t believe, even if anyone would believe that she drew on me first.  Jimmy got it into his head to shoot all the steers and burn the place down, make it look like rustlers or something.” 

 

Ben exhaled, long and loud.  “You know a man called Hollander, of Bisbee?”

 

“No,” Bowden said, looking genuinely puzzled.  “Is he a Pinkerton?”

 

Fighting the urge to chuckle, Ben looked past Bowden to the doorway, with a wry smile.  “You got all that, Dan?”

 

“I did.” The pistol in Dan’s hand was shaking, his eyes bright, as though with tears.  “I did.  God _damn_ you, Bowden… god _damn_ you!”

 

Bowden stood up sharply, the stool falling back with a crash in his shock, twisting around in astonishment, and then he flinched as a shotgun discharged in a roar, once, twice, then thrice in the backroom.  Ben’s smile widened as Charlie emerged, spattered with blood and gunpowder, his manic grin smug.  “I thanked them so very kindly, boss.” 

 

“You’re with the fucking _Pinks!_ ” Bowden snarled, whirling back to face Ben, and made as if to draw his pistol. 

 

Dan’s pistol rang out, even as Charlie leveled the shotgun and Ben drew the Hand of God, but Bowden had already collapsed, the back of his skull caved in.  Trembling violently, Dan stared down at the body, his eyes wide, even as Charlie snorted and walked on over to Bowden’s corpse, discharging the shotgun into the back of his head, then placing the now-bloody weapon on the unbroken glass case. 

 

With the shopkeeper and his daughter evidently flown, and the corpses of the men who’d been harassing them regularly scattered within his shop and killed via shotgun blasts, their money in the old man’s pockets, the locals or anyone left in Bowden’s gang looking for revenge wouldn’t think to search further afield for the real culprits.

 

“Let’s move,” Ben said briskly.  “Someone might come and investigate.  Dan, where’s your horse? _Dan_?”

 

“General… General store,” Dan whispered, and only after Ben disarmed him and shook him roughly by the shoulders. 

 

Ben glanced at Charlie, who nodded and stalked out to mount up.  Moments later, he returned with Dan’s chestnut Standardbred, and Ben all but manhandled him up onto its back before getting onto his own horse.  It didn’t look like anybody had bothered to stir from the saloon, and Ben didn’t spot anyone chasing them as they rode hastily south and out of town.

 

5.0

 

Dan rode beside Wade in a numb daze, barely noticing whenever they stopped to make camp, eating and drinking mechanically, not even looking up when they rode into a small town, really a square church at one end and a long, unbroken white brick building beside it, with a low wall around the town.  There was a dry fountain in front of the church, lined with candle stubs.  Wade hitched his horse up against the low wall of the town and spoke quietly with Prince, then Prince dismounted as well and strode into the long building.

 

Wade nudged him until he got dismounted and hitched his horse, his fingers moving on automatic, then the outlaw was gripping him by his shoulder and his elbow, all but dragging him into the church, past empty benches until he was at the front, and forcing him to sit down. 

 

Dan stared down at his hands.  A rancher’s calluses were already long overlaid by those from a gun and the reins, from years of learning the road.  As he watched, his fingers began to shake again, and gloved fingers closed up around the back of his neck, almost gently, then a well-worn bible landed on the bench beside him.  “How about you make your peace, Dan,” Wade said, not unkindly.  “I’ll get the priest to bring you food and water.”

 

Dan buried his face in his hands as he heard Wade’s spurs receding from the church, his eyes dry against his rough palms, though his throat ached; he made a dry, heaving noise of raw sorrow, his mind an utter blank, even of the faces of those whom he had loved and lost, a pressure remaining instead, a choking blanket of noise and sensation past grief or anger; he could feel his knees knocking together, cold sweat prickling down his back; he opened his mouth to cry out but heard only another harsh rasp-

 

When he finished shaking, Dan rubbed his eyes and picked up the bible, balancing it carefully on his lap and opening it to the front page.  Under the neat print was a child’s scrawl of a woman, old and doodled with thick charcoal lines, utterly out of proportion.  On the next page there was a slightly more detailed, but equally childish sketch of what looked like a view from a railroad station, and Dan frowned, turning back to the first page.

  
 _Took me three days to do it-_

 __

Dan flipped carefully through the old book, turning the pages slowly.  Most of the pages were clean, but some, particularly the proverbs, had tiny pictures scrawled on the edges, mostly of stick people and horses and houses.  At the last page, there was another scrawl, of a kid holding a woman’s hand, with particular detail in her hair and her dress.  Dan felt his throat tighten up again, and he swallowed hard.

 

“Some people,” a creaky, heavily accented voice said, if hesitantly from the side, “Some people find peace reading the Holy Book.”

 

Dan looked up sharply to see a stooped, if tall Hispanic man, thin and dressed in black with a clerical collar, shuffling towards him with a tray of water and a few slices of bread.  The priest put it down on the bench, then sat down slowly beside him, his weathered skin almost translucent, like parchment, and wrinkled over the tight line of his collar, his eyes rheumy, as though almost blind, only a few wisps of white and gray remaining over his ears.

 

“I hope they didn’t threaten you, Father,” Dan said warily, though he drank the water gratefully. 

 

“No, no.  I know those boys, and I was a friend of Campos’ second aunt.  She was a good woman, may God bless her soul,” the priest said, a little sadly.  “Pity her nephews and their friends never did get used to honest living, but it’s a hard land, here, for honest men.”

 

Dan stared hard at the drawing of the kid and the woman, and turned back to Genesis.  There was a child’s drawing of a sun, above the large font of the title of the chapter, a circle surrounded by a circumference of squiggly lines.  “Father, forgive me, but I have sinned.”

 

“Ah.” The priest looked up, at the rough stone altar with the frayed, dull red cloth upon it, and further up at the rusting crucifix.  “Go on, son.”

 

“I killed a man.  I don’t remember, I think it must have been two days ago.  Nuevo Bianca.  I shot him in the back of his head.  I’d heard him confess to killing my wife and my son, burning down my ranch, shooting all the steers to make it look like it was someone else’s doing.  My son was a child, five, he was a sick child.”

 

Dan gripped the bible tightly in his hands and felt his eyes begin to sting.  “And yet it was… it wasn’t… My wife had been frightened when Bowden had opened the door, she’d had a gun, he’d been about to offer to pay for a steer that he’d shot.  When she raised the gun, he’d… he’d thought the worst of it and shot her, and shot at some movement that he’d seen.  He killed them both.  He didn’t… I think he didn’t mean to do murder.  But I killed him.”

 

The priest seemed to mull this over, picking at the hem of his fading black coat, his gaze still resting on the crucifix, and then he repeated, as though to himself, “It’s a hard land, for honest men.”

 

“I was going to bring him north, to the Pinkerton jail in Deming.” Dan muttered.  “But he drew a gun on Wade.  I didn’t think.  Hell, Wade probably would have killed him before he even thumbed the safety, it wasn’t as though he was in any sort of real danger… I didn’t _think_.  I spent years thinking it was someone else that got Bowden to do murder, Father.  Spent years working to prove it.  Seems it was all… all so _pointless_.” Dan’s voice cracked at the last, and he took another dry, heaving breath.

 

“Life isn’t pointless.  Neither is death,” the priest said, wryly.  “Not even here.  You blame yourself for your family’s murder.  Had you been there, would there have been a difference?”

 

Bowden had been at the ranch with his gang.  If Dan hadn’t left, if William hadn’t followed him… “It might.”

 

“Even so, killing yourself over the past won’t change things.  Nor would my forgiveness make a man like you feel any better unless you think you’ve earned it.” Bony fingers clasped tightly at his shoulder.  “I’ll say a prayer for you, son.  But what you do next with your life, it’s up to you.”

 

“Someone told me that God had to give some leeway on sin,” Dan recalled, too weary to feel any irritation at the memory of Wade’s mockery of scripture.  “Or Heaven would be an empty place.”

 

“I like to think so.  I’ve done things in my youth, myself, that I regret.  That could have cut me out of the running for Heaven permanently, perhaps.” The old priest’s eyes twinkled.  “But if I could help some poor soul on his or her way, after Judgment Day, even if I don’t spend eternity singing in the Holy city, I reckon I’ll have some small comfort in the Pit, knowing what I’ve done.  Who knows how the Lord reckons it all? There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel against He.  Proverbs, twenty one.”

 

Dan blinked, straightening up with a start at the Reverend’s words, but the old man was dusting himself off as he got carefully and slowly to his feet.  “You get that plate and cup to Rita when you’re finished.  She’ll find a room to put you up in.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Platitudes

Part 4

 

VI

 

The door was ajar, the chair at the three-legged desk propped against the wall was off-kilter, and Dan Evans was sprawled asleep in the narrow cot at an odd angle, his head against the pillows but his long legs still hanging out into space, the borrowed bible clutched against his chest, as though he’d started off reading at the desk, and then had moved to the bed, and then had dozed off still wearing his boots, waiting.

 

Quietly, Ben closed the door, unable to help the sly grin that crept across his mouth.  Over the past few days that Ben and the others had been gone, it looked like Dan had changed his gray clothes for a fairly clean white shirt and a worn pair of brown pants, cut his hair short and shaved.  Except for the gun belt and its holster still snug around the ex-rancher’s narrow waist, Dan would only have needed a black jacket and a white collar to complete the picture of a wandering preacher.

 

Years ago, on the way to the train to Yuma, Dan tended to sleep the sleep of the dead, unwary and inadvisable out of a ranch.  Now he opened his eyes a narrow fraction when Ben shrugged his jacket off onto a chair, then sat up hastily when Ben started unbuttoning his waistcoat. 

 

“Must… must’ve dozed off while waiting,” Dan said uncomfortably, his eyes fixed on Ben’s boot spurs, turning a little red.  “Here, this is yours.”

 

Ben ignored the outstretched bible, pulling off his gloves, and as an afterthought, unbuckling his gun belt, rolling it carefully on the desk.  “That one belongs to the church here, Dan.”

 

“Oh.” Dan was opening the bible, to the last page, running a thumb absently over the worn edges.  “You’ve known the reverend long?”

 

“Long enough.” Ben said evasively, setting his hip against the table and folding his arms.  “You’re looking better.  Less like before, when you were shaking all to pieces.”

 

“Yeah,” Dan definitely looked embarrassed now.  “Listen, I… that’s to say, uh, thank you for all that trouble, dragging me back here and all, finding Bowden and getting him to talk…”

 

Dan’s voice trailed off, and Ben kept his expression solemn.  It had been luck itself that Bowden had been coming to the gun shop everyday in the evening, and luck again (or perhaps not, if Dan was truly that stubborn) that Dan was so close behind, but Ben wasn’t above taking credit where it wasn’t owed.  “Didn’t think you’d _shoot_ him after we’d gone to all that trouble.”

 

Dan reddened further.  “I didn’t think… I wasn’t thinking, I saw him going for his gun.”

 

“And you didn’t think Charlie or myself would’a gotten him in time?”

 

“Wade,” Dan growled, his eyes narrowing, and _this_ was the side of Dan that Ben definitely preferred over awkward coltishness, “Why the hell must you always be so… so _bloody minded_ whenever I’m trying to _talk_ to you?”

 

“Playing to rote?” Ben suggested, then explained, when Dan looked puzzled, “I’m a big, bad outlaw, Dan.  I’m not supposed to be nice.”

 

Dan stared at him as though he’d just grown a couple of horns out of his forehead.  “I don’t know a lot of people who would’a walked into a town like that just to help me.”

 

“Then it seems you don’t know very many interesting people.” Ben swept off his beloved black hat, clutching it over his chest mockingly.  “Very sad.”

 

“It seems that one or both of us has to be bleeding and being shot at before we can have a normal conversation,” Dan said dryly, perhaps too tired to lose his temper.

 

“You forgot ‘hungry’, ‘piss-tired’ and ‘desperate’,” Ben pointed out, with a smirk, sinking down to sit on the bed beside Dan.  “How about calling me ‘Ben’ instead of ‘Wade’, and we can try again?”

 

“Uh,” Dan frowned at him, and actually edged carefully a hand’s breadth away.  “What are you doing?”

 

“This is _my_ bed,” Ben pointed out.  “Has been, for a few years and then some.”

 

“Oh.” Amusingly enough, Dan actually seemed to forget the awkwardness of the situation, looking around the room as though seeing it in a new light, at the ancient wardrobe with the faded drawings in varying shades of yellowing paper tacked upon it, the rusted old pistol used as a paperweight on the three-legged table, and the high shelf over the narrow window with its neat row of dusty books.  “I didn’t reckon that you operated out of Mexico.”

 

“I don’t.” Ben tossed his hat to the table. “You don’t see that many green-eyed women in these parts.  Or crazy ranchers.”

 

“You grew up here?” Dan pressed, ignoring his comment and tapping the bible’s crackling pages meaningfully.  “This _is_ yours.”

 

“Was.” Ben confiscated the bible, reaching out to push it up on the table beside his hat.  “The kid that drew all over that book grew up fast in the badlands, when some nosy preacher found him sitting all by himself in a train station.  This was where I’d come and sleep, sometimes.  I didn’t live here.  The preacher taught me how to use a gun, to shoot coyotes.  Once I could use it without getting knocked around by the recoil, I left.”

 

“He mentioned Campos.  Not you.”

 

“And fed you all his lines about living happily in hell if he could help souls to heaven, no doubt.” Ben leaned back against the rough plaster wall, folding his arms behind his head and smirking.  “It galls him to hell that the kid he taught all those proverbs to repeat by heart turned out to be such a blackguard, but he can’t help but keep trying on every lost wretch that chances over his path.  The preacher won’t change, poor bastard.” 

 

“He’s a good man,” Dan said stubbornly, then frowned when Ben chuckled and looked up at the cracked ceiling.

 

“I had someone call me that just three days ago, for being able to quote Scripture.”

 

“Well, that person sure as hell was mistaken,” The ex-rancher declared, though the frown smoothed away and he even smiled; it softened the hard, sun-browned lines of his face and the deep bruises around his eyes, made him look younger, _handsome_. 

 

With trimmed hair, gloves and a decent suit, Dan might even pass as a visiting dandy from the big cities; if one overlooked the wiry strength in his shoulders and the rolling walk of someone now far more used to a horse’s back than walking.  Religion, rest and a basic diet seemed to have done wonders for Daniel Evan’s temper and sense of humor, apparently.

 

“You seem to have warmed up to me anyway,” Ben said playfully, glancing back down at Dan.  “Killing someone that you’d spent years trying to bring to justice.”

 

“You just keep harping on that until you’re satisfied,” Dan tried for the same light tone, it seemed, but didn’t manage to shuck all the bitterness.  “But just so we’re clear, it don’t mean that I’m signing up with you as a bandit.”

 

“That’s just one of the things I’ll like to sign you up for, Mister Evans,” Ben purred, and grinned slyly when Dan looked puzzled again.  The man had gone through the army, but he seemed to be totally immune to innuendo and suggestion.  It was probably one of the reasons why Ben kept trying to push his buttons.  He never really knew how Dan was going to react.

 

“One of? You mean you do other things than murder, steal and bed women of easy virtue?”

 

“I’m talking to you right now, ain’t I? Doesn’t seem to fall into any of those categories.”

 

“I might just count the coins in my purse before I leave the room, then.” 

 

“You do that.”

 

A strange, comfortable silence stretched, broken only faintly by the sounds of people moving around on the floor beneath them, and the town’s skinny dog barking at tumbleweed distantly to the west, horses snorting and whickering to each other in the compound.  Ben wasn’t sure if he liked it.  He wasn’t too used to companionable silences; Charlie was full of energy, Campos tended towards long rambling diatribes in Spanish, and Nez was usually too morose for silences to be comfortable after a while.  And as to all the women he’d known, he’d usually ended up having to spend his silences thinking of ways to get away without inadvertently causing a scene – or losing his purse.

 

“What have you been doing anyway?” Dan asked finally, looking out of the window at the horses.  “Doesn’t look like all your men are here.”

 

“What, d’you think I just happen to be so successful at murdering, thieving and bedding easy women because I’m lucky?” Ben arched an eyebrow.  “A lot of planning, scouting the land and strategy happens to factor into a life of iniquity, Mister Evans.”

 

“The train’s just going to follow the tracks, it ain’t gonna run nowhere by itself.”

 

“And this is exactly why Pinks and small town sheriffs can flourish, small-time thinking like that.  The idea is to not only steal it, but to get away with all that gold, _and_ spend it afterwards.  Gold’s heavy, Dan.  It ain’t just a matter of grabbing what you can and running for it.  Not when there’re going to be some gangs that’d be acting like vultures, waiting for someone to stop the train, take the losses and then hit them when they’re weakened.”

 

“Martinez has a lot of men.  You could jump him instead.”

 

“The glory’s in performing the heist _and_ getting away with it, all at once.”

 

“You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Dan said, though without too much conviction.  “Crazy bastard.” 

 

“Besides, I hear Garcia and a hella lot of guns went through Nuevo Bianca a day ago.  Killed everyone.  Left the mine alone, though.  Martinez is out of the picture.  It’s just the other barons we’re up against now.”

 

“’Just’ the other barons?”

 

“The pessimistic spot on the team is already filled by Nez, rancher.” Ben grinned when Dan instantly frowned, irked.

 

“I said I ain’t joining up.”

 

“Sure, Dan, so I’m supposed to think something different about coming back to my room and finding you in my bed.” Ben winked, and this time, Dan flushed a worrying shade of crimson.

 

“I was waiting for you to come back so that I could return the bible,” Dan growled, low and exasperated, and hell if that sort of tone didn’t make him want to lick his lips and squirm.  “And say my thanks.”

 

“And so?”

 

“What?”

 

“Say your thanks, then.”

 

“Thank you fucking kindly,” Dan said stiffly, and added, “You son of a bitch.”

 

“You’re very welcome, Daniel Evans,” Ben replied, with mock formality, a hand over his heart.  “Now that you’re done here, how about you go return that book to the church before the old man realizes that it’s missing?”

 

Dan huffed, muttered something under his breath, but got up from the cot to pick up the bible, stalking for the door, though he paused when he got his hand on the knob.  “What are you gonna do next? That train’s leaving soon.”

 

“Next?” Ben repeated slyly, and rubbed his hand lazily down the front of his pants, feeling his cock stir with interest.  The bed and the room smelled nicely of Dan, clean and warm, and it had been a long day.

 

Dan’s expression was a curious mix of horror, disgust and fascination.  “You’re going to uh, get Prince?”

 

“Charlie’s a good leg of country away from here if he knows what’s good for him, checking on the foundations of some bridges.” Ben wanted to say that he would be thinking of Dan, or more specifically, bending that long, lean body over the three-legged table, or pinning him up against the wall and driving into him until Dan forgot his first name.  Unfortunately, Dan looked like the sort who would march over, break his nose, and then ride out in a thorough and righteous temper, never to be seen again save down the long barrel of a Sharps rifle, which would be a damned waste now that he was being so entertaining.

 

Dan, however, seemed to read something of it in his expression; the ex-rancher’s eyes narrowed dangerously, his free hand on the door curling tight, then he ducked his head quickly and left the room, shutting it loudly behind him.  Ben smiled to himself, calculating odds, and reached down to free up his cock, stroking it slowly, dry and rough, up in a languid squeeze to the tip, his head lolling back with a self-indulgent breathy purr.  He could hear spurs retreating outside, as though in frightened haste, and his smile widened.

 

6.0

 

Dan didn’t see Ben’s horse around in the morning, or most of the others, and the upper floor rooms were empty.  Feeling a little as though he was trespassing, Dan guiltily stepped back into Ben Wade’s room, looking more closely at the sketches pinned to the wardrobe.  He’d been too exhausted the last time, soul weary, and he’d spent most of the time waiting by reading the bible, or trying to, and getting distracted by all the childish scribbles.  The priest had taken the abused book back with no comment, and hadn’t looked as though he was interested in answering any questions.

 

As a rule, Dan Evans himself was not particularly a curious man; he preferred to let other people’s business be.  Living out far away from town with just his family suited him where Alice had chafed and William had grown rash and reckless.  When people burdened him with personal details, he was uncomfortable and surprised rather than entirely gratified.

 

With Wade, however – or _Ben_ , as the outlaw had decided that he wanted to be called, things were all to often off-kilter.  There was an aura of contagious madness around Ben Wade that made Dan do things that he’d never do when thinking things over by himself.  Agree to escort him eighty miles away through dangerous territory, walk a path through Apache killing grounds, drag him half a mile across a street full of gunmen to a train just to prove a point… it was all madness.  He’d recognized this only days after, when he’d returned to his ranch to find it burned, his family destroyed.

 

 

Circling over to the bed, Dan tried very hard not to recall how Ben had looked up upon it, slouched like a whore with his legs open and his hand moving in a lazy curl up between them, his lazy smile inviting and his rough drawl every color and measure of sin.  It had been a long, uncomfortable night, and he’d previously thought himself a God-fearing man.

 

Dan looked up closer at the books on the shelf, and picked one at random.  It turned out to be a sketchbook, professionally bound by stitching, and it looked like it had been completed maybe a year or so ago at the most.  The first few pages were full of sketches of birds, perched on branches or on fences, and Dan leafed through them slowly, absorbed in the details.  The next drawing after the set was of a naked woman, her smile coy as she looked up from her sprawl on a bed, and Dan hastily turned the page.  The next was of some sort of shopkeeper, his portly outline visible behind the large letters printed across the glass frontage of his shop, a tailor-

 

“Didn’t like that one,” Ben commented, over his shoulder.  “The arm’s a little wrong.”

 

Dan yelped, flinching away and into the wall; Ben winced at the _thump_ , though he grinned wickedly.  “What, were you expecting someone else, Dan?”

 

“Didn’t see your horse,” Dan said, abashed at being caught, quickly replacing the sketchbook on the shelf.  “I’m sorry.  I’ll leave.”

 

“You can stay.  Keep looking through that book, if you want.  I went for a short ride.  The others will be back over the next few days, then we’ll rest up, and ride out.”

 

Dan met Ben’s steady stare, and said, more quietly, “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t referring to the trespass any longer, but Ben seemed to understand; he smiled his sly smile and clapped Dan on the arm.

 

“Didn’t think you would come along.  Charlie thinks it was all a mighty waste of time, Nuevo Bianca.”

 

“Was it?”

 

“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.  I think if we hadn’t been there, you could have gotten yourself killed, and then the world would be less one interesting person.  Damned shame, that would be.”

 

“I could have taken care of it myself,” Dan retorted, though he smiled when he said it.  Ben’s hand seemed to burn, through the layer of his shirt; it was so _warm_.  “So I’ll ride back up north, and you can get yourself killed in peace.”

 

“You’re so sure that I’m going to die?”

 

“They’re not very good odds.”

 

“Then you won’t refuse a condemned man’s last request?” Ben asked, so innocently that Dan’s guard instantly went up.

 

“What last request?” he asked, warily. 

 

“A kiss?” Ben purred, in _that_ tone of voice, the one that had Dan sitting up and sweating in the middle of last night, and Dan swallowed hard, unable to look away from the intensity of Ben’s eyes, rooted to the spot.

 

“All right,” he found himself saying, rather to his personal shock.  “One kiss.”

 

Ben smiled, smug and satisfied, and took a step back to the door, closing it firmly.  “Sit down on the bed, Dan.”

 

“One kiss, you said,” Dan pointed out, though he complied, sitting at the edge, nervous enough now for his collar to feel too hot about his neck.

 

“I said one kiss,” Ben agreed, stalking back towards him, spurs jingling, for all appearances like a hungry, predatory lion, “But I didn’t say where.”

 

Puzzled despite himself, Dan was about to ask, then he said tightly, “Oh God,” instead, when Ben dropped fluidly to his knees and rubbed his palms up Dan’s inner thighs, spreading them.  Dan sucked in a sharp, rasping breath as Ben undid his belts, pulling them clear, then worked on his pants until he had his gloved right hand curled sinfully tight around Dan’s firming prick, stroking, slow and teasing until Dan had his fingers dug into claws over Ben’s broad shoulders, his voice ragged in thin gasps. 

 

“This… this isn’t a kiss,” Dan wished he hadn’t stuttered; Ben looked all too pleased with himself.

 

“I don’t see you fighting me, Dan,” Ben said, and before Dan could recover enough of his sanity to do just that, Ben had bent down over him, and at the first tight press of lips around the crown of his cock, Dan jerked, with a whine, twisting his hands up into Ben’s thick hair, the black hat rolling away forgotten onto the floor as Ben chuckled around him and sank down, pressing his tongue _up_ and _curling_ ; Dan pressed his knees hard around Ben’s ribs and let out a wrenching groan-

 

And then Ben was pulling back, with a final, swirling lick that made the toes of Dan’s good leg curl tight in his boot; he was dimly aware that he was begging, babbling.  “No, no, please, no, _Ben_ , please don’t.”

 

“I like the sound of that,” Ben said roughly, his eyes dark with lust, as though _Dan_ had been the one bent over Ben’s lap, and he shifted up to push Dan onto the bed, grinding his shoulders into the frame of the cot as he tried to balance in an ungainly sprawl of long legs and protesting furniture, working his teeth into the sleek line of Dan’s neck and growling when Dan’s fingers tightened again in his hair.

 

It felt strange to have another man’s cock pressed slick and up against his, a big hand squeezing and stroking them both together, a man’s weight pinning him down and Ben’s rough drawl breaking into gasps beside his ear; Dan pried his hands off and down to fist them in Ben’s sleek black coat, rolling his hips up and moaning at the harsh, wet snarl right up against his ear.  He let out a choked cry when release finally took him; Ben shuddered, following quickly after, his hands clawed in the sheets, a stuttered “ _Jesus_ ” buried against Dan’s neck. 

 

Ben rolled off and onto his flank, but it was still hot, sticky and increasingly uncomfortable, pressed up against him on a cot that could barely take their weight.  Ben grinned breathlessly at him as he stared, still dazed and unthinking, and as he watched, in growing disbelief, Ben drew one gloved finger through the seed drying over Dan’s belly and popped it into his own mouth.

 

Jesus _Christ_.  Dan stared, wide-eyed, then he gave up searching his mind for an appropriate word, rubbing his eyes instead with a moan.  Ben made a contented, catlike sound from the back of his throat, and curled up against Dan’s flank, already dozing.

 

VII

 

Dan Evans wasn’t the sort of man to leave abruptly during the night or resort to histrionics at upheavals in faith and morality; Ben had no doubt that the first that Dan had seen of the bodies of his wife and son, he’d likely simply walked around to the burned ruin of his shed to get a shovel.  It wasn’t coldness or a lack of emotion; in many respects Dan Evans was the epitome of a frontier settler, simple, brutally practical, and utterly obstinate in the face of all adversity.

 

In that regard, Ben wasn’t entirely surprised to find Dan fully dressed and cleaned up when he woke up, sitting on the chair at the desk and going through a pile of his sketchbooks, again so absorbed that he didn’t notice when Ben sat up on the bed, his pretty face softened in an expression of pleasure, close to reverence, as he thumbed the pages.  Ben felt a hot flush twist tight at his throat, a thorny sensation of hungry possessiveness; not quite lust, not quite at obsession, a little something of both.

 

“Afternoon, Ben.” Dan said idly, turning another page.  “You’re really good at drawing.”

 

“Why, thank you kindly.” Ben said, his ego pleased with the praise.  “You’re going?”

 

“I’m going,” Dan agreed quietly, without looking up, paper crackling gently under his thumb and forefinger.  “Maybe when you’re done being crazy you can look me up.”

 

And sometimes when Ben thought he’d had Dan all figured out- “Didn’t think I’d hear that from you.”

 

“Maybe you don’t know me that well.” Dan closed the sketchbook and scooped all of them into his arms, placing them back carefully up on the shelf in a tidy row.  “Alice never did bother.”

 

“Did bother to?”

 

“I won’t speak ill of the dead,” Dan glanced back briefly down at him, “Women sometimes look at a man and see what they want him to be, and they won’t hear of anything else.”

 

“You can change the veneer, but not the blueprint, apparently.” Ben had heard that from someplace, a saloon, perhaps, a morose husband pouring out his sorrows over whisky. 

 

“Hope not.  You’re probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, Ben.  You don’t have to live this sort of life.  There’s got to be counties where you ain’t wanted.  You could start over.”

 

“And I’d go where, to some two bit town in the brush, and do what, Dan?” Ben drawled, “Become a preacher, maybe? Recite Scripture for the unwashed for the rest of my life?”

 

“I don’t know.  I’m not smart, not like you are,” Dan said, eyeing him evenly.  “I’m sure you can figure something out.  When you do, I’ll like to help you, if I can.  If you want me to be there, I will be.”

 

“What are _you_ doing next?’ Ben asked quickly, as the thorny sensation curled tight within him again, making him uncertain, his fingers twitching for the familiar weight of his gun.

 

“Me? I’m going to look for Butterfield and my son.  I’ll stay with them for a while, if they’ll have me.  Then… I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll find McElroy.  The Pinkertons aren’t all bad, what they do.”

 

“Why not start a ranch again?” Ben was positive that he didn’t enjoy the idea of Dan becoming a Pinkerton permanently.  “You have the money.”

 

“No,” Dan admitted, seriously, a little sadly.  “I don’t think so.” He stepped awkwardly in front of Ben, stumbling a little as the boot on his maimed foot caught briefly at a wrong angle, but he righted himself absently, and lips brushed briefly over Ben’s forehead.  “Good luck, Ben.”

 

“Good luck,” Ben echoed, reaching up to curl his fingers around the back of Dan’s neck and pull him down for a hard, rough kiss, more promise than farewell.  Later he watched from the window as Dan mounted up and rode out in a brisk canter, fading into a chestnut speck over the wavering horizon that paused briefly, on the arch of a hill, before fading away and out of sight.

 

7.0

 

Dan sat under brilliant yellow, his back up against the rough bark of the old cottonwood tree, unfolding the newspaper with care, half a mile away from the trading post; around them, the Great Plains stretched, endless and otherwise unbroken.  There was a fair likeness of Ben on the front page, smirking up at the reader, and a smaller illustration of a train.  _AMERICAN OUTLAW_ , the headlines shouted, then, in slightly less frenetic lines, LEGEND OF THE WEST, then _Ben Wade Orchestrates the Heist of the Decade_.

 

Dan skimmed through the rest of the article with a wry smile, then the commentary on the next pages, before folding the paper back up into a neat square and whistling for his horse. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fin… Hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Struggled briefly with writing Dan into the heist, turned it over in my mind for a few days and decided against it - would have been out of character. I guess at this point Dan rides away into the wilderness, like in most Westerns. :3
> 
> Regarding grammar and spelling mistakes, for some reason AO3 doesn't always register my edits to chapters, so if you want to read an error free version of this story, try my livejournal account at http://manic_intent.livejournal.com :)


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